


Just A Bad Dream

by TeethFarie



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, Death, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Relationships, Multi, Nightmares, Toxic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 03:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29253783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeethFarie/pseuds/TeethFarie
Summary: He’s there again.Washed up on the shore of the Lazaret.Asra’s all numb and exposed nerves at the same time, so overwhelmed his aching brain can’t catch up. The rickety wooden boat bobs in the water behind him, deep indigo waters far too beautiful for the circumstances.
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra (The Arcana), Asra/Julian Devorak
Kudos: 14





	Just A Bad Dream

**Author's Note:**

> The first asra fic I’ve written and it’s angst T-T

He’s there again.

Washed up on the shore of the Lazaret. 

Asra’s all numb and exposed nerves at the same time, so overwhelmed his aching brain can’t catch up. The rickety wooden boat bobs in the water behind him, deep indigo waters far too beautiful for the circumstances.

He’s gone here alone. Muriel’s not with him, he’s unsure where he is. Muriel had taken the boat many times, spending his days digging into the sand to bury the dead.

The red plague.

That’s what he’s fought with you about before he left. You wanted to treat the sick and comfort the dying. He begged you to leave with him, where it was safe.

_ ‘I can’t do that, Asra.’ _

When he’d come home, months later, the shop was empty and cold. It stood barren and hollowed. A single dried flower laid on the stoop. Asra’s heart had lodged in his throat. 

The compass!

The compass always leads him home, always back into your warm arms. It’d never lead him astray.

And so it leads him to a pier, the same he’d slept by in his childhood, gazing up at star filled skies. He steps into the boat and grabs the oars. 

The dial points insistently at the looming island ahead.

Yes, you were helping the sick, it’d only make sense for you to be there, right? He’d find you there clad in black and the beaked mask that always made him shiver, he was sure of it.

When his feet touch the sand, the beach is a ghost town, clouded with thick smoke. A stir catches his attention.

The compass.

The dial is moving, flickering between different directions. Were you running? Darting different directions? That’s the only way the compass would be so indecisive.

Then, the dial spins—quickly, violently. 

Rapping against the glass cage the dial lays in, it gets faster, faster, faster; until it goes blurry from the speed. It dawns on Asra, what it means.

The compass had always led him to you when he needed you. But now, it spins a complete 360, repetitively.

Slowly, like wading through thick mud, he looks up, to large smoke stacks protruding from the remnants of the Lazaret.

No.  _ No.  _

This can’t be it—you can’t be—this couldn’t happen, not now!

He walks like a newborn deer, stumbling across the sticky sand. The compass drops and so does he, to his knees and his palms to the sand. Only now does he notice the tiny fragments that litter it.

They weren’t dullen shells. They were bone.  _ Human  _ bone.

Asra doesn’t realize he’s crying until tears pelt the back of his hands as he digs, looking for any part of you. Hot tears pour down his cheeks and his nose runs. His vision is blurred but it doesn’t stop him. 

He sobs openly, choking and wailing to no one and everyone the same. 

He caves trenches into the beach, finding nothing but charred bone and sorrow.

“Asra.”

He doesn’t hear it at first, he’s too preoccupied trying to fetch what’s left of your body—to do what with? Build back together?

“Asra!”

This time, he stops. It’s your voice! It’s warbled and hazy, but it’s yours!

He turns, shaking his white hair out of his face, sobbing your name. You stand at the shore behind him, your shadow casting down on him from the large moon behind you. You loom over him like the daunting blade of a guillotine.

  
  


Asra is frozen in place as you walk to him, slow and staggered, like your body isn’t yours. “Asra..oh, I’ve missed you!” You throw yourself onto him, wrapping lukewarm arms around his neck. He doesn’t care about the chill, he holds you close like he wants to melt into you, wetting your shoulder.

He claws at your back, body racking as he screams and cries. “I’m here now.” You pet his head, offering comfort. It’s not how you usually do it. You’re uncoordinated, but Asra supposes it’s because he’s been gone so long.

Slowly, he calms, eyes red rimmed and his body weak. “I-I th-thought you—“

He lifts his head, gazing into your eyes for the first time.

They’re red.

Not bloodshot, not tired.  _ Red.  _ You’re sclera is crimson.

Asra stares in horror, pure unbridled fear. 

“Y-you—“ he lifts a shaking hand to your cheek, flinching at his own movements.

“Why’d you leave me, Asra?”

The howling wind halts at your words, freezing the air. “Wh-what?“ He can’t comprehend what’s happening.

“You left, Asra. You left—and I  _ died _ .”

Your voice pierces his heart like a sharpened spear. At first, it’s the subject of your speech, but then it’s your tone; cold and heartless, like you’re waiting for your chance to deliver the killing blow.

You rip yourself from his clutch, standing above him with an expression unreadable. “It’s your fault. Where were you?” You slowly circle around him, stretching your leg over the trenches dug in his haste. 

He’s at a loss for words. You drop into the trench, stooping down a few feet and bend, sifting through ashen sands. When you stand, you grab his wrist and pull his hand closer.

Your grip is rough and calloused, not at all how you used to hold him—when you were with him,  _ when you were alive _ .

You drop something small into his open palm and release his grip. Asra looks down, the world crumbling a little more.

A tooth. A molar, stubby and beige.

Faint and nearly dissipated is your aura, wrapped around the porous bone like tissue paper. He whips his head up but you’re gone, only a faint whisper in the wind. 

It’s all that’s left. Of you—a single tooth. If he looks closely, he can see the impression of a cavity you always complained about.

_ Why _ ?

  
  


Asra awakes in a bed held by two strong arms. His coworker at the palace, Ilya. 

A sudden feeling of disgust and anger washes over him. Asra rips himself from the man's arms, jolting the other awake.

“Huh? Asra, what wro-“

“Don’t touch me.” Asra hisses full of venom and Ilya stares in disbelief. He pushes himself as far as he can from the redhead, curling on the edge of the mattress.

Asra can feel his companions concerned gaze on him, on his back that he bares to him. But Ilya says nothing, perhaps too frightened to. This was normal, he assured himself. Asra just had a bad dream. Ilya keeps a distance to not agitate him more and Asra stares blankly at the wall ahead.

Just a bad dream. 


End file.
